Negotiations Stalled for Voice Actors in 'The Simpsons'

By BERNARD WEINRAUB

Published: April 14, 2004

LOS ANGELES, April 13 — On television Homer J. Simpson is an underachiever, the safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, with the record for most years worked at an entry-level position. In real life Mr. Simpson and his family of subversives have, by the estimate of accountants employed by the actors who supply their voices, earned Fox upward of $2.5 billion as the stars of one of the longest-running prime-time series in television history.

Now those actors are demanding their share of the wealth. Insisting that "The Simpsons" would not be the same without them, the professionals behind the voices of Homer, Bart, Marge and the show's other animated characters are holding out for the kind of financial rewards earned by actors on hit sitcoms like "Friends" and "Frasier."

Hollywood executives say that the actors' insistence on not just a near tripling of their salaries — to $8 million a season — but also on a share of the show's profits is a first for an animated series, a genre that studios and networks have counted on for predictable costs and peaceable casts.

A senior Fox executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the actors' estimate of revenues for "The Simpsons" was "extravagantly high" and that the figures did not reflect the considerable expenses of a series that employs large numbers of writers, producers and animators. (He declined to discuss revenues for the show.)

But other television executives said the $2.5 billion figure was not out of line, given the syndication fees for "The Simpsons," its huge success in merchandising and its potential DVD sales.

According to Fox, "The Simpsons" is averaging 11.5 million viewers an episode, down 2 million viewers from last season. But the show is still the network's No. 1 Sunday series and ranks first in its time slot for adult viewers 18 to 49, a much sought-after age group. The show is also the longest-running animated series ever.

The fall season for "The Simpsons," normally 22 episodes, will be cut short because of the contract impasse, the Fox executive said. "We can't saddle the show with costs that make it uneconomical to produce," he added.

But money is not the only issue. At stake in the negotiations over "The Simpsons" is a potential precedent that could color the broadcast networks' competition with cable networks, which increasingly schedule cutting-edge animated shows aimed as much at adults as at children.

What faces the networks — and the actors — is the question of how important are the voices, and even personalities, of the performers portraying animated characters. Are they anonymous, perhaps interchangeable? Or are they as important to the success of an animated series as, say, the actors on "Will and Grace" and "Friends"? Animation might play a much smaller role on television if voice performers were to be paid as much as actors who appear in the flesh.

Six years ago, during an earlier round of strained contract negotiations between Fox and the leading actors on "The Simpsons," the studio hired casting directors around the country to find replacements but failed, said David E. Weber, the lawyer for Hank Azaria (who provides the voices of Moe, Apu and other characters), and John S. Kelly, the agent for Yeardley Smith (Lisa), in a joint interview.

"The issue is twofold," said Mr. Kelly, a partner in Bresler-Kelly & Associates in Los Angeles. "The personalities that the audience identifies with for each of these characters don't come from the drawings but from the personalities of the characters, which are provided by the actors. The second thing is there are 40-some regular characters on the show. They're all voiced by these six actors."

According to the financial analysis developed for the actors, Fox, which has financed the series from its start in 1989, has earned $2.5 billion to $3 billion from "The Simpsons," mostly from syndication, advertising, foreign license fees and merchandising. Several television agents said "Friends" might generate comparable figures in syndication.

"In contrast to numerous other successful shows, none of this is being distributed to the actors," said Mr. Weber, a partner in the Beverly Hills law firm Offer, Weber & Dern. "There's no back-end position at all," he said, using an industry term for profit sharing, "or the upfront fees have not been significantly raised as a recognition of past contributions to the financial success of the show."

"What we're really asking for is what's customary in the television business for actors on successful shows," he continued. "We're not getting it."

But the Fox executive said it was "an enormous stretch" for the actors on "The Simpsons" to compare themselves to stars like Ray Romano of "Everybody Loves Raymond" or the cast of "Friends." Those performers, the executive said, are significantly identified with their characters, perhaps to the detriment of their future careers.

Sitcom casts, he added, work almost exclusively on their shows, while the actors on "The Simpsons" generally work two half-days for each episode, leaving them time to play other roles in films, the theater and television with relative ease.